… Tereshinski says one factor that hasn’t gotten much notice is that because of construction, the team has been moved to a different weight room, and for the previous 18 months had been largely operating out of trailers. They didn’t have much room for equipment: No dip bars, no incline presses, and some other machines.

“Last year’s team was very limited, really because of the facility, of what they could get done,” he said. “So we were very weak in our triceps. We were very weak in our upper chests. So what happens is now that we have our full weight room capacities we’re really going to be able to develop our bodies fully. …

“That did affect this team. Because Georgia did not have anything that it was used to having. Now we have an unbelievable weight room, and we have everything we need.”

You can’t really blame that on the coaching staff. In fact, I wonder how strenuously Richt objected to the timetable when it was presented to him by (I presume) Evans. In the SEC these days, eighteen months of subpar training is pretty much a ticket to mediocrity… which, when you consider, is where the Georgia program has been the last two seasons.

Go talk to Herschel Walker about not having facilities and not making excuses. I am hoping Coach T’s results can match his rhetoric. When I read this it doesn’t inspire confidence. Dip bars and incline press machines lead to weak triceps and upper chests? Really? Wow. There are about a tons of other exercises at their disposal for those two muscle groups that don’t require dip bars or incline press machines.

Grab a pair of dumbbells and chair and you have a freaking incline press machine. Hell, they don’t even need weights to jump down on the ground and do tricep pushups and wide pushups.

It all goes back to that which I have sworn not to discuss anymore on this blog. Blame it on the weight room if you wish.

You shouldn’t point to a genetic freak and assume that other players can match his conditioning. That’s just silly.

It’s also silly to assume that the S&C staff didn’t know exercises to supplement the equipment they were missing. But, when you’re allowed a max of 8 hours a week with a kid, you should maximize that time. And having a kid do 30 minutes of pushups instead of 10 minutes of dips isn’t very efficient. So I think it’s a dovetailing of accountability, management, and apparently, facilities.

Sorry. This is a thread about facilities and their role in conditioning. I thought by bringing up Walker you were trying to make a comment relevant to the topic at hand. Since you weren’t, I have no comment.

If it was really that big deal, then they should have leased an entire fitness club out in Athens or moved to Ramsey or something instead of being mediocre. This is the football equivalent of “the dog ate my homework”

That would have involved spending more money. Damon was big on the bottom line.

I suspect they allowed themselves to be convinced it wouldn’t be that big a deal. Whether it’s because they underestimated the effect, failed to plan better, or something else, it looks like they were wrong.

Frankly, I always thought that the decline of the program directly involved Damon– action or inaction on his part. The swan dive started when he arrived as AD and got worse as time progressed. Coincidence? I think not. He clearly was not on the same page as CMR–witness the scheduling that lead directly to 3 losses in 3 years. Thank goodness for red panties.

I get that they didn’t have their full complement of equipment.. and that certain things couldn’t be worked in the same capacity… but just how much was unavailable? 5%? 10%? I can’t imagine it was more than that.

Besides the post mortem on the S & C seems to be a lot bigger than just missing some equipment. Complacency seemed to have set in. I can get into the idea that it was part of the problem, but not that it was a major factor.

Excuse me for pointing this out but didn’t the consensus of opinion on this very blog come down that the reason the offense and defense wasn’t successful was that the O-line and D-line kept getting pushed around last year? And wasn’t what most of us decided was the cause of that was that the players were out of shape? Posters on this blog and others started talking about it after the South Carolina game and went on and on about it all season culminating in the “SEE!” moment when Coach Van got the ax. Face it–both lines were soft last year. I hope Coach T fixes it and believe he will. That should go a long way toward turning the Dawgs around next season.

“That did affect this team. Because Georgia did not have anything that it was used to having. Now we have an unbelievable weight room, and we have everything we need.”

That doesn’t sound like jumping the shark to me. That sounds like somebody sending a message that he won’t accept excuses for suckitude this season.

Honestly, I don’t get this. There’s been constant bitching about how Georgia looked weak in the fourth quarter, how the lines got pushed around, how players didn’t look as physical as other teams, etc., so here’s the guy saying everyone’s right about that and he’s not going to let it continue – and he’s getting slammed for it. What do you want him to say right now?

I don’t think anyone is slamming JT2. I think they are simply rolling their eyes at rhetoric and more focused on seeing the results.

I think the slamming is more directed toward the fans that seem to have it in their mind that JT2’s rhetoric has already fixed everything. The fans that fail to realize our issues are much bigger than S&C is who i think the slams are directed toward, and rightly so.

Sometimes the blinders on this blog can get frustrating to those of us who have a better view of reality.

I’m optimistic we’re going to have a much better recruiting class than I expected in the aftermath of the bowl game.

I’m optimistic we have a favorable schedule next year.

I’m optimistic our staff knows they are coaching for their jobs for the next 11 months.

I’m optimistic that low expectations lead to pleasant surprises.

I’m optimistic that another year of grantham’s schemes and changes to our S&C program will have a positive impact on the team.

Unfortunately I’m not at all confident in the ability of our current coaching staff, in only a few short months, to address the lack of discipline on and off the field, coach up the top recruits we are continuing to get in spite of ourselves, prepare our team to mentally and physically play 4 quarters of football, avoid alternating fits of genius and stupidity in the playcalling/personnel selection, or change what has become a culture of entitlement and complacency in our program.

I don’t know if that is healthy skepticism or knee jerk pessimism, but that is my version of reality as to where things stand right now.

Let me go ahead and call it for you homers – i predict 5-7 season, richt is fired monday after loss to georgia tech, we are rumored to be turned down by a couple of big name coaches and hire smart shortly thereafter. Smart KEEPS Bobo on staff…

I don’t call that knee-jerk pessimism, i call that my prediction on what will happen next year. And I stand by it.

I’ve was called an idiot by many on this board for 11 months from early in the ’09 season up to the SC and Ark losses in ’10. Now people finally acknowledge i was correct about the direction of the program and don’t like that I’m not predicting a miraculous turnaround and want the to see the proof on the field before i’m more optimistic about where things are headed. I have a hard time understanding that.

I think we (the fans) have been fed alot of kool aid the past few off seasons. It seems we are startng to catch in a bit, Nothing wrong with being a little skeptical. Some results wod be nice. In other words: hard to pin a losing season on a few weight machines.

But this isn’t DVH giving us another one of his “bigger, better, faster, stronger” offseason pep talks. All CJT has said is that things slipped, here’s one reason why, but that ain’t happening again. He wasn’t blaming 6-7 on the weight room and he’s not predicting 13-0 now. All he’s saying is that he’s going to bust ass and intends for his players to do the same.

No doubt there are serious structural problems beyond S&C affecting the program and those are above his pay grade. But you can’t fix the S&C problems without identifying them first.

Complete BS on this one. Could the team not use Ramsey? Its better than any gym i’ve ever been a member of. The team typically works out in the am, and whenever I went to Ramsey in the am it was a ghost town.

It’s an Auburn conspiracy…Brasfield & Gorrie did the renovation, and that construction company is owned by and riddled with WarEigersmen. They massaged the timetable with Damon…and voila! suckitude strength-wise.

I’ve seen clips of the FB and BB teams weight rooms and workouts. The first thing I noticed was how many were standing around with each other. I’m not sure what their routine is on average. But in the UCF game and a few others the past two years, I thought the O line stood around a little too much.
Everything should be time…max…push…get it in. When I worked out I had a routine, timed, an order to the workout, no standing around, one apparatus to the next, no breaks, little or no water, hydration routine prior and after, and meal schedule. And running. But do these guys run enough. Do they have good first step speed and position. Then you have to think of the space that speed is required for…line of scrimmage, down field, shuttle speed, lateral speed, how quick they get back up and into a play, and into the gaps, etc. When you watched UF the past few season, did you notice how long they stayed in a play, if down how quick they got back into it, how quick their pursuit was, and how quick their lateral speed and agility was. All of that comes from S&C, but do they run. If you run 70 to 80 offensive plays in a game, and remember at the Liberty Bowl they ran 70 plays [6 pts…all FGs], you maybe close to being in condition. There is that line you cross when you can regas yourself in a game if you are conditioned. If I’m Coach T, I start limiting my comments about the facility and the program. At least he did not comment on off season and in season. Or you could be put under a spotlight like at Iowa.
Time. Construction takes awhile sometimes. But you have to ask the question about the brain trust for a “subsititute facility” and routine changes. What was Evans, CMR, the rest of the staff, and AD doing? But remember this is a program that was willing to spend time and money to fly across the USA.
This is where the new AD comes in…time and money. He wants those guys closer on games so they can spend more time in class, practice , and conditioning.
Let’s see how the new S&C coaching staff does. You can only do so much in a weight room. There is no subsitute for speed. To make any play you have to be in position. To be in position it takes speed and quickness…and being in condition[from the first play in a drive to the last play in a drive].

Senators right-everyone bitchin about us being weak now we uncover some reasons. This is of importance-they were working out in trailers? Now we move to state of the Art? Folks this will make a differance.Not a fix all but it is a factor

I think the old staff was big on the S Strength and short on the C Conditioning. Foot ball is about leverage and leverage begins with the legs. IF you are weak in the legs and out of condition then the upper body strength does not matter. The push of the O line on a run comes from the legs not the arms you are not going to push 280 lbs with your arms. Look at the weight of our oline guys they are all gut. I’ve seen less gut on 50 year old beer drinkers. Run them till they puke then run them some more.

Unfortunately, at this point, regardless of what the coaching staff says a portion of the fanbase is going to complain. One of the big complaints has been about the team being weak. Give the man a chance. Reminds me of what Jesus said, ” we played a flute and you did not dance, we sang a dirge and you did not weep.” Coach T is dealing with one aspect of the program. He’s shooting straight. I’m sure some of the things that he’s said have not been easy for CVH.

I will say that it’s nice to hear him say “We’re not training for the Olympics anymore, we’re training for football.” All the fast forty times and big bench presses don’t mean squat if you can’t line up and beat the guy in front of you, and it sounds like JT2 gets that.

I appreciate that JT and the coaches are still talking to us, instead of going straight into bunker mode once the clock hit all-zeros in Memphis. Any kind of transparency is a pretty mature response from management, but, after a failure, you just leave yourself open to the boobirds, i.e.:

You point out what went wrong. Boobirds’ response: “Um, duh! And what about x, y, z? See, you don’t even know how in over your head you are!”
You point out what went right. Boobirds’ response: “You’re delusional! In a losing season, by definition, nothing went right!”
You point out what you’ll do differently. Boobirds’ response: “Why now, and not a year ago? You’re too damned late!” Also known as the Jeff Schultz Special.

At the end of the day, screw the boobirds. All you can do is all you can do. Either the results will come or they won’t, regardless of what the boobirds do.

Its not like Coach T scheduled a press conference where he told the media that the lack of dip machines is why our team sucked the last 2 years.

An interview was requested, he showed up, and he answered questions. Included in those answers were these revelations about construction and some shortfalls in equipment access.

I think it was very interesting insight and frankly it took a lot of balls to admit what he admitted. The real question there is how the heck Richt/Evans/VanHal tolerated the situation to go on that long.

I also think this is a sly way for Coach T to say “yeah, the last 2 years have been crap S&C” without blatantly calling Coach VH to the mat.

I don’t see this as proof we are going to win the MNC next year, but I still find it interesting and a little sad that we had this situation going on the last 2 seasons.

Red Blackman remains apathetic. However, he likes the direction we are moving in.

As for Richt, he has taken responsibility. He has made much needed changes that those not in the arena have called for. He has put together a remarkable recruiting campaign under dire circumstances. Get off his back.

Coach T knows who the slackers are….obviously. Accountability has a new face in Athens. When off the field issues are non existent this summer, you will believe. Coach T doesn’t want to be your buddy nor does he care about your soul. He wants to turn you into a small puddle of sweat and blood that bleeds red and black. He wants you to earn your free ride and represent his alma mater with pride and character. He knows his role. Georgia will field a well conditioned, physical team next year. …bank on it.

To the naysayers, archive this post and humiliate me in December. I will be here.

“He has put together a remarkable recruiting campaign under dire circumstances.” Exactly. Not many coaches in his unenviable position can pull that off.

“Accountability has a new face in Athens.” Love it. I have felt that the root of the problem(s) could be traced to accountability. Despite the things that make us apathetic, Richt and McGarity are not idiots and I have to credit Richt for being a man’s man and taking responsibility. Hard to understand how Joe T. can step in, acknowledge some of the problems, and commence to fixing the S&C program but then catch grief for it. I’d bet that if we hired Scot Cochran from UA and he said the same things Joe T. did, people would think he’s a genius.

I understand and share your apathy, and it is justified, but you are spot on with the team we will field next year. Regardless of the final win-loss record, we will look like a different team. I’ll bank on it too.

The second and maybe most critical phase of working out is recovery. It seems like we did not have the type of training facilities to help our guys recover properly. Cold pools. Warm pools. Resistance pools. All needed for top-flight athletes to recover and all were missing.

Couple that with missing some key equipment and missing some key accountability and you have a recipe for mediocrity.

More I hear about things it might have been a blessing in disguise that Evans is gone. Richt from the time he got to UGA had been asking for an indoor practice facility, he finally got something resembling one but not as good as the program can afford. Took 18 months to get the weight room redone and during that time the money wasn’t spent to make sure that there was no gap in the S&C. Richt was doing non-football stuff that Evans could have handled that is now handled by McGarity. Not sure that all of it was Evans fault but I am hoping that McGarity being in place gives the football team better chances for the PROGRAM to be what we all think it can and should be.

Improvise, adapt, and overcome. That should have been the thought process when dealing with the renovation changes. I think it just speaks to the laziness of the S&C program to not think outside the box and the stupidity of the former AD to not facilitate the premier sport(and money making program) of the University of Georgia.

You can modify an exercise program to get the same results if your facility has been scaled back for whatever reason. I’m not buying the excuse.

As far as the AD side of the equation is concerned, I don’t know what the job calls for as a whole but, logic would dictate that if your gym/weightroom was in for some serious down time, you would make decisions to minimize the impact on all of the programs. I guess Evans was too caught up in trying to get in some strange.

The whole article just reads like a lousy excuse for getting pushed around in game. I hope Joe T and his methods can induce a significant change. Cause it’s his show now. You can’t use the “no weightroom” card.

If you really think that facilities have little or no impact on a football team, then why do programs who can afford it spend tens of millions of dollars on facilities? Are all those coaches and ADs idiots when they could just have their kids doing push-ups in their dorm rooms? It seems to me that people spending that kind of money expect a return on their investment.

Bloviation for the Dawgnation

Quote Of The Day

“It brings back a great Bulldog running back in Thomas who has NFL playing experience and has had success as a college coach at multiple schools. He also inherits a position that has been built to an elite level by Bryan. And it gives Bryan the opportunity to return to coaching the position he played and the one where he cut his teeth serving as a graduate assistant under wide receiver coach John Eason here at UGA. It also provides him with a new experience as a passing game coordinator.” -- Mark Richt, AB-H, 2/16/15